there were days when something inside her felt unbearably heavy, but she never knew how to let anyone see it. so she became quieter when she wanted to cry, colder when she wanted comfort, and sharper whenever someone got too close to the things she was trying so hard to keep buried. people only saw the attitude, the distance, the sudden irritation, the way she could turn the smallest thing into an argument. they never saw how much she was actually trying to hold herself together.
maybe that was her way of surviving things she didn't know how to explain. she didn't want anyone to look at her and realize she was falling apart, so she made herself difficult to reach. she pushed people away before they could notice the cracks, acted like nothing mattered when, deep down, everything did. and whenever her heart became too full, she let the anger speak for her because anger felt safer than admitting that something had hurt her.
sometimes the people who seem the hardest to understand are simply the ones who never learned how to say, “this is hurting me.”